Liverpool’s title challenge is now, for the first time in a while, ‘out of their hands’. The Reds were frustrated throughout the 90 minutes against Chelsea, leaving everyone deflated.

After being on cloud nine for weeks, fans were brought right back down to reality when captain Steven Gerrard slipped to gift Chelsea their undeserved lead.

Mourinho’s ‘park the bus’ tactics were deemed a masterclass by some, but it’s hard to take for Liverpool, whose philosophy is the exact opposite.

However, it just shows how far Brendan Rodgers’ side has come, with teams feeling the only way they’re going to get anything out of the game is to do so.

Liverpool have worked all year to produce such entertaining football, and losing due to a stationary wall, leaves the debate as to whether it is ruining these types of games. This is even to the extent of Mourinho himself selfishly guarding the ball from Gerrard when the Reds were gathering momentum.

Mourinho himself was quoted after their West Ham game this season that hypocritically, it’s ‘football from the 19th century’.

Chelsea did their job to take the sting and momentum out of the game, but the added tactics of obvious time-wasting left an unnecessary bitter taste.

After City and Chelsea’s slip-ups last week, some took to social media to point out the fact that Liverpool could afford to lose this weekend and still manage to win the league. Now faced with that actual scenario, it’s a completely different matter.

All Liverpool can do now is do their job, and get their points on the board. Even with the lurking threats behind us, it’s always better to have your points in the bag than whatever could potentially happen during games in hand.

The Liverpool fans were behind the team from the word go, as they have been all season. Even to the extent where You’ll Never Walk Alone was being sung after Chelsea got their second. They have been a key factor throughout the campaign, and there’s no doubt they will be in these final two also.

With the final title push now not even in our hands, neighbours Everton could do us a massive favour by getting a result at Goodison Park against City next weekend.

But in terms of picking ourselves up from this defeat, the last thing Gerrard deserved was a costly slip – although at the same time, you can count on the captain to stick by what was his own self-generated motto: we go again.